Stanford
University recently conducted a study that
shows a minimal number of scientists who do not accept that human
beings have contributed to the Earth's climate change have "far
less expertise and prominence in climate research" than
scientists who do believe climate change has been affected by
humans.

The
university came to these
conclusions by analyzing the number of research papers
published "by more than 900 climate researchers" and the
number of times these researchers' works were cited by other
scientists. The expertise was evaluated by citing the number of
research papers written by scientists (with the minimum number for
inclusion being 20).

Prominence
was analyzed by finding the four most popular climate change and
non-climate change papers published by scientists, and "tallying"
the number of times these papers were cited. According to the
results, approximately 64 percent of papers by climate researchers
convinced
of human contribution were cited more often than those who
are unconvinced.

The
scientists who participated in the study were also involved in
creating the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which compiled and "assessed
the evidence for and against human involvement in climate change, as
well as any climate researchers who signed a major public statement
disagreeing with the findings of the panel's report."

In
addition, the university's team of scientists decided on who the top
100 climate researchers are by determining the "total number of
climate-related publications each had." According to Anderegg,
97 percent of those in the top 100 agree with and/or endorse the
IPCC's assessment. He also says that this result has been "borne
out" by other studies that use different methodology.

"We
really wanted to bring the expertise dimension into this whole
discussion," said Anderegg. "We hope to put to rest the
notion that keeps being repeated in the media and by some members of
the public that 'the scientists disagree' about whether human
activity is contributing to climate change."

The
scientists at Stanford have mentioned that they are ready to take
some heat from doubters of anthropogenic, or human-affected, climate
change who "object to their data." But according to Stephen
Schneider, a professor of biology and a coauthor of the paper
in Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences, the
team "took pains to avoid any sort of prejudice or skewed data
in their analysis." When selecting researchers for the study who
either disagreed
with statements of the IPCC or signed the petitions, the
Stanford team was sure to stay completely neutral in the study by
omitting "those who had no published papers in the climate
literature."

Schneider
says that despite the careful analysis of this study, skeptics of
human-affected climate change will "claim foul" anyway, and
will say that climate researchers who are onboard with the idea of
anthropogenic climate change are "just trying to deny
publication of the doubters' opinion," but he challenges them to
"go out and do a study to prove it -- it is of course not true."

"I
think the most typical criticism of a paper like this -- not
necessarily in academic discourse, but in the broader context -- is
going to be that we haven't addressed these sorts of differences
could be due to some clique or, at the extreme, a conspiracy of the
researchers who are convinced of climate change," Anderegg
said.

"When
you stop to consider whether some sort of 'group think' really
drives these
patterns and it could really exist in science in general,
the idea is really pretty laughable," he said. "All of the
incentives in science are exactly the opposite."

This
Stanford study is the first of its kind to address the issue of
scientists' opinions of human-affected climate change, and what their
level of expertise and prominence in the field is.

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The problem is that all Global Warming/Climate Change models predicated on a principle that Earth's temperature is stagnant. Meaning, within a certain time frame, temp is supposed to remain steady and even.

So if you say it isn't normal that Earth's temps vary not only every 100, but every 50, 10, or even a single year...any time there is a variation, they can go out and find data that shows how the temp is varying. This data then "proves" the temp is not normal (because they say temp must remain the same) therefor climate change exists. The principle they hold is that Earth's temp only changes (one way or the other) after catastrophic events or over thousands/millions of years.

Rather than changing the premise of the model (that it is normal for temps to vary), they instead use it as "evidence" how the climate is changing and humans are the fault of it. Then you have people arguing about whether or not humans are responsible and claim people who say the temp is not changing "loonies", because the temp does change/vary.

It is part of the Hegelian Dialectic to create two view points with a narrow view and use them to argue the existence of the other. This allows you to trap people in the box, and not looking looking at a larger (truer) picture.

Simply accept the fact that Earth's temp does in fact change constantly and quickly, with or without the interference of human beings and you have the entire global warming/climate change issue mute. But they don't ever want to bring it up because they have their own agenda to push, they want to keep the argument inside a box, a box they can control and win with.

quote: The problem is that all Global Warming/Climate Change models predicated on a principle that Earth's temperature is stagnant. Meaning, within a certain time frame, temp is supposed to remain steady and even.

Where do people get this stuff? Yes, the planets temperature changes. NO ONE IS ARGUING OTHERWISE!

Its all about trendlines; if the line starts to skew in one direction, is that a varience, or a new trend? And over the past century, the trend has been a steady linaer increase in temperature [which indicates that in the short term, we should expect a continuing linear trend].

Secondly, opponents to Climate Change have yet to put forth any theory of their own to explain away that trend; arguing against GW with an opposing theory is one thing, but arguing against it without another explanation of the data is another one entirely.

Temperature changes for a reason; be it a decrease in solar output, to the moon steadily moving away from the planet, to GW affecting the atmosphere as a whole.

And before people bring up the Global Cooling debate of the mid-70's, the thought at the time was that increasing CO2 concentration in the atmoshphere would block out more heat then would be trapped, cooling the planet. This theory was thrown out after probes from Venus [mainly done by the USSR] started to measure Venus' surface temperatures, and people realised the opposite effect is true.

Heck, Venus is a pretty good example all by itself: A thick CO2 covering traps in heat [hence why Venus is warmer then even Mercury at the surface, despite significantly less Solar output]. Heck, CO2 is KNOWN beyond any reasonable doubt to trap heat. The only real argument is whether enough of it is being dumped to have an effect on Earth.

no the entire concept of global warming is that oh no its hotter by 1 degree now than it was 200 years ago we are all about to die!

The problem with the trend lines is the "scientists" all have different ones! Ive seen trend lines from an MIT scientist/professor that shows trend lines going down slightly over time since 1990. But then you look at the ones from the now discredited east anglia and they are all going up. You cant trust the data most of the time and the way they calculate the global average temperature is so convoluted that their own model doesnt compile (seriously some computer scientist tried to get their data to compile and he couldnt because several portions of it were hard coded to a certain value that was then tied to a variable that was supposed to be input by the user). I know we use satellite data but how hard is it to come up with a simple average for the data points where the satellites acquire their temp data?

The opponents of man made global warming dont have to put forth a theory to prove that the man made global warming supporters are mathematically wrong.

You do know that a lot of the temp data that the global warming scientists are using for temps earlier in time is from 3 (not 30 or 300 or 3000...just 3) trees cherry picked for their large rings out of Siberia. That's what they are pinning their older temps on... 3 tree's rings from 1 location in Russia.

Since you brought up the global cooling debate I will say that that was just as ludicrous.

If our atmosphere was so thick that you couldnt see the ground from space (like venus) then yeah there would be some global warming due to the particulate and/or gasses in the atmosphere... but its not and that's why there's no life on venus (shocker I know).

Lastly you do know that 95% of the greenhouse gasses is water vapor right? The entire atmosphere contains 0.0390% co2 (venus is 96.5% CO2).

quote: Where do people get this stuff? Yes, the planets temperature changes. NO ONE IS ARGUING OTHERWISE!

Well they DO use that to make their case. If it's a hot summer we hear news stories about it being proof of Global Warming. Cold Winters? Proof of that too. Bad hurricane season? Yup you guessed it, proof of global warming.

quote: Heck, Venus is a pretty good example all by itself: A thick CO2 covering traps in heat [hence why Venus is warmer then even Mercury at the surface, despite significantly less Solar output]. Heck, CO2 is KNOWN beyond any reasonable doubt to trap heat. The only real argument is whether enough of it is being dumped to have an effect on Earth.

Actually Venus is not the best example to prove CO2 is what is warming the Earth. The Earth does not have large amounts of Sulfuric Acid in the atmosphere, nor does it have tiny amounts of Water Vapor. That is like saying an Apple is an Orange because they are both spherical. Mercury is not as hot as Venus because there is no atmosphere at all to keep the dark side warm, just like the Moon there is an extreme temperature differential from light to dark because of lack of atmosphere. The Earth or Venus would be the same without atmosphere, and even if the atmosphere were 100% Nitrogen you would still have the effect of stabilizing the temperature differential to some degree. There are 100s of variables to consider when talking about climate, to reduce it to one (like CO2)and claim it is the total driving force is laughable.

This study shows there are many other chemicals that are much stronger at causing a greenhouse effect. It also states that they could become factors in warming that are manmade but are not yet at concentrations high enough to have much of an effect. The article also shows that until last November noone had actually done a spectroscopic study of gasses to see what their greenhouse potential really is, it is interesting how much stronger freon is than CO2. But on top of all this, you have to consider how well the gasses migrate into the upper atmosphere where they can actually cause the greenhouse effect. If they tend to stay near the ground as most heavier molecules do, then the effect is negated by their placement.

Also their models are based on the supposition that co2 is what's causing the warming. That was confessed on a PBS special by someone who worked to develop the model back in 82 I think it was. It worked for a while as long as the amount of co2 produced increased and the average temperature increased... but the temps have gone down in the past decade while co2 production has increased!

We just had the coldest summer on record a couple of years ago but you dont see that in the media because it doesnt fit the headline that the prophet Algore was right and we are killing mother earth. We are being lied to by the 60's and 70's hippies who are now grown up and put on a suit and ran for congress. As someone else said earlier the reason they are pushing for the cap and trade is power.

When you have a global government dictating how much co2 you can produce what's to stop them from limiting you to 1 hybrid car per household? Why stop there why not just say only x number of cars can be sold in each country? Then we have cap and trade for car purchases and the global government can claim that "this will go a long way to curbing global warming" when in reality all it will do is price the poor people out of the car market and jack up prices of everything all over the world.

Central planning is one of the tenants of a totalitarian regime and if the central planners can rally around a "moral issue" such as global warming then anyone who opposes their controls and caps is the enemy or immoral.

quote: Central planning is one of the tenants of a totalitarian regime and if the central planners can rally around a "moral issue" such as global warming then anyone who opposes their controls and caps is the enemy or immoral.

This is the basis behind the non-scientific political agenda that is entangled with the debate on global warming. There are scientist on both sides that have valid arguments, but the side that gives the politicians power is the one that will be promoted the most in public. And even if you don't believe in the more sinister prospect of governments wanting total control of the people, there is the more benign fact that government leaders feel threatened when faced with something that is beyond their control. It makes them look weak to their citizens.

If mankind is the driving force behind global warming, then governments have some control over it. If it is a totally natural occurrence then governments really have no control over global warming and they become powerless to stop it and thus look weak. If you want a good example of this just look at the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The government can blame BP and make a show of doing something by punishing them for it. Had it been a natural blowout in the sea floor and they were as powerless to control it as they have been so far, they would be ridiculed as totally incompetent and impotent as the government was after Katrina. Even in Katrina the governments did not want to start out saying "OK we have work to do" they just wanted to be able to blame someone for what was an act of nature beyond anyone's control.